Astral Ships: As amazing and unique as you can imagine!

Update: An hour after this was published Gpotato released news announcing that beta has been extended one week until the 10th. Time to play an alt and help friends I guess. If you’re interested in playing you can just make a gpotato account and play now since they do not require a beta key anymore.

Closed Beta ends in three hours and I think all of us playing can’t wait with hopes that Open Beta (considered launch) will follow shortly. It’s been a journey. In fact, it’s been a magnificent journey. I’ve been praising the game for some time now so I won’t slobber all over the details which you can find by browsing my Allods entries. However, there’s something special I want to share with you guys to conclude my closed beta testing entries.

I was lucky enough to get the opportunity to test out Astral Ships! I’ve made a lot of friends in this beta and today a couple of them surprised me with an invitation to crew a brand new Astral ship. I met them in the hangar at Novograd where the ship was docked and the crew (my group members) were finalizing preparations for departure. Decisions had to be made about who was going to take the helm, who would use the visor, who would monitor the scanner, who would handle repairs, and who would defend the ship. In a few minutes jobs were handed out. I was tasked with repairs — a job that I’ve never done (not that I’ve done any) but one I was excited about. We departed from our hangar and warped rather quickly to the Astral.

Engines warmed up, which I could actually hear, and we began to move. I got chills. Someone was actually controlling this massive ship that I was on! I watched him turn the wheel and we began to move at an angle… in real time! There’s a bit of a learning curve. The crew member on the visor gave him instructions on where to go and it took about 15 minutes to learn to work together and navigate the Astral, but we eventually got a little bit of a handle on it. We saw allods in the distance and sailed by a couple of them. We were actually sailing and working together to move this massive ship.

We eventually sailed into an area and the astral turned red. We couldn’t tell if we ran aground on one of those astral thingies or if we had sailed into an area we shouldn’t have, but the ship started sending warnings. The shields started draining and the adrenaline kicked in. I ran to the basement, grabbed the goblin by the hair, and dragged him to the area that the ship indicated was damaged. How do I use this thing?! Warnings were going off everywhere and everything was breaking and I ran as fast as I could to the next station but it was too late and we were doomed. We blew up and were sent back to the hangar. Repairing the ship would cost 40g and 10 hours or we could do a quest and lower it to 3 hours.

The video I’ve attached highlights my journey into the Astral for the first time and I hope it captures the feelings that I tried to portray. This was really unlike anything I have done in a MMO before. I’ve never been able to set sail in a vessel with team members that each had to play their own role. I’ve never seen, in 3d, a world move around me as -I- am in control. I’ve never experienced being apart of a crew that has to defend its own ship and fire cannons at others controlling their own ships. It’s different than something like STO or even Darkfall where you can sail ships. The depth that this type of gameplay can add to exploration is immense. While Allods has done an extraordinary job, I can’t help but imagine the power this could have in future games.

Who would have thought that Allods Online, a free to play game, could accomplish what so many have wanted for years? Regardless of how the game ends up with its cash shop or whatever may happen, these accomplishments can not be diminished. We were all a bunch of noobs and had no clue what we were doing, but the epic feeling of crewing a ship with 6 people — real people working together — was unmistakably unique and just as amazing as you could ever imagine. Getting them at launch and sailing with a guild crew, perhaps even in an armada, is my dream right now.

Exactly! And when someone does a proper pirate MMO this is how it should be. Sailing with a crew in a shop that must be maintained in a world that is wide open around you, finding islands and docking at them, finding loot and putting it on your ship… I get so excited thinking about the possibilities. The immersion is phenomenal really. We spent maybe thirty minutes out there learning how to steer the thing and sail around yet it felt like a journey. It will take teamwork to another level and once people get pro at these things there will be a truly amazing environment for PvP.

I must say Allods is an amazing game and the Astral Ships are really wicked and such a good idea. Remember STO when it said it was going have something kick ass like umm I don’t know a whole guild controlling 1 ship and working together? Well shit we have a winner. Allods does that and quite well.

I think the repair goblin is the best at what he does, then tinker, then the other (chance to fail, I mean). And when the engines went down, and you dragged the goblin to the helm I giggled. I think you took a wrong turn on the way to the engine room =P That video got me really excited for OB. I thought we’d be done now, so didn’t have the oomph to level my paladin past 30 and just made alts in my spare time… had I known =( Grats!

I’m not entirely convinced that this awesome feature could have been so easily a part of STO. And the reason being that while in Allods ships are just one part of the game, in Star Trek they are the whole game. Giving the opportunity to do this is completely different from forcing it on every player.

The only thing i could think happend is you went ouside of the map. Kind of like other games where there is an allusion that it goes on for ages, but after a certain point you start taking damage. BattleField does it , Farcry 2 did it.

‘This was really unlike anything I have done in a MMO before. I’ve never been able to set sail in a vessel with team members that each had to play their own role.’
‘And when someone does a proper pirate MMO this is how it should be.’

I guess you have never played puzzle pirates ^^. That is one of my favorite (if not my most favorite) mmo’s, although it has very bad graphics.(http://www.puzzlepirates.com/)

You board a ship with a crew and everyone mans a station where you have to do a puzzle, including sailing, bilging, navigating, gunnery, rigging, carpentry, battle navigation and treasure haul (the largest ships can hold 256 pirates). If you see another ship you can attack and damage it. The fight continues until one of the ships board the other ship. Than a giant brawl start where your team has to swordfight or rumble (more puzzles). The winning crew steals (a part of) the loot and both ships continue. When the ship is back in the port the loot is divided under the crew members.

Hi Keen,
so you got me interested in this game and i was wondering : could you give us some info about two things ?
1. character customization (stats, talents, anything…)
2. combat gameplay (is it very basic (wow) or is there some depht (movement bonusses, morale/DP system, chain skills, reactive skills…))

This reminds me a lot of multi crewing vehicles in WWII Online and even Star Wars Galaxies. Specifically in SWG, you could repair the engines or weapons with repair kits, or man turrets.

It bewildered me why games such as WoW came out, a long time after these revolutionary games and took them 3 years to only touch the surface of this technology, albeit at a much cheesier fashion (battleground vehicles.)

I hope game companies and developers realize that this is what this genre needs more of, instead of the typical theme park, little reward, no emphasis on exploration and adventure model. I have to say I’m not fully convinced Allods will be something I get into, because of forewarnings about the cash shop and pvp debuffs. But nonetheless I’ll have to keep my eye on it.

“I’ve never been able to set sail in a vessel with team members that each had to play their own role”

Multiseat bombers in Air Warrior (the first MMO really), during the early 90’s. I can relate to the thrill of collaborating with a whole crew, it felt unbelievable the first time I took a gunner seat in that game.

@Kifix: Character customization comes in the form of a Talen Tree and a Talent Grid. You can allocate 38 rubies and 45 points. Here’s a link to a talent calculator that will give you some idea of the customization you’re looking at.

It’s like WoW’s combat system. Not identical (there is no auto attack) but similar.

@Buddydude: Not at this time. They’re releasing patches that have been fixing the UI. Maybe it will be added.

@Thallis: I think it was that we were going too far off the edge of the particular map we were on instead of going in a wurmhole or we were ramming into something like one of those toob things. We don’t really know for sure.

@Tobie: I’ve heard that this resembles Puzzle Pirates. Haven’t played it but I’ll take your word for it.

For the talents I would suggest you to take a look here (http://allodsbase.com/en/talents) to see how much different skilled there are. You get one talent point every level and two talent points every two levels to upgrade talents in your main talent tree. Each talents costs one talent point to upgrade it to rank one, two talents points for rank two and three talent point for rank 3 (that means you need six points for a rank 3). You need to spend a certain amount of talent points before you can train talents in the next row.

There are also three additional talents trees (known as development boards) which require ‘rubies’ to train them. You can buy one ruby a level at your class trainer (you can only buy them at level ten and above), but they get more and more expensive as you level. You can also get rubies by completing world mysteries (important quest chains). You can only train those talents to rank one, but some talents appear more than once in the development boards (how more you train, how stronger the effect is). You can only train a skill in a development board if it borders a skill you have already trained (that means you have to create the right path through your development boards).

All classes from one Archetype (an example of an archetype is the mage archetype, an example for a mage class is the elven archmage) have the same talents, but they all get a ‘racial ability’ around level seven which make them unique. You can see a list of those archetypes, classes and their racial abilities here (http://novogradtimes.com/2010/01/22/reference-guide-racial-abilities-by-class/)

You also get one stat point every level, which you can put in one of the fourteen stats (strenght, finesse, expertise, agility, luck, endurance, stamina, intelligence, perception, convinction, willpower, mercy, faith and wisdom). This doesn´t really matter anymore later on because the stats mainly come from your armor (you can only spend 39 points yourself, but good high level armor can give you something like 300 points) though. Armor can also give you ´elemental resistance´, ´nature resistance´ and ´divine resistance´ and of course it also gives you ´armor´. You can see what those things do here (http://allods.wikia.com/wiki/Stats)

The combat gameplay is really unique because there is no auto attack. That means you can only attack by using certain talents on your enemy.

There is a lot of depth, an example: if you use ice spells on an enemy it slows him down, if you use fire spells directly after that, you will get fire damage and additional damage for the ice and fire spells combination. Some talents make yourself invisible, some let you charge enemies, some let you totally freeze enemies, some let you stun enemies, some give the enemies DoT (Damage over Time), some let you grow or shrink, some can protect yourself etc. etc. How strong you will be really depends on your stat build, talent build, armor and how u use your talents. That means that if you mess up, you won’t be able to do the quests you get, because some of them are really challenging.

The pvp is also great. There are arenas located at both the league (level 7+) and the empire (level 4+) main allods where you can fight other members of your faction. From level 23 and above you will get on the ‘holy lands’. Those lands don’t belong to one of the two factions and that means open world pvp. You can decide yourself if you want to be vulnerable to pvp or not but if you are you will get 110% of the normal exp and if you’re not you will only get 90% of the normal exp. And ofcourse there is the astral, where you can not only fight demons and do raid instances, but where you can also attack ships of the other faction. You can also invade the main city of the other faction which acts like a giant raid instance.

If you die you will be send to the ‘purgatory’, where you will have to wait for a certain time (depending on your level) before you can revive. You can also revive immediately by using ‘Mhyrr’, which can be buyed from ingame npc’s (for ingame gold) or from the cashshop (for real money). Since the last patch you receive a debuff (called ‘Fear of Death’) that can stack up multiple times and which makes it almost impossible for you to kill any mobs or players. This debuff can also be removed by spending Mhyrr but it means that you can’t really pvp for fun anymore because it became too expensive. There is a lot criticism on this update so it will probably be removed or adjusted.

This is the most customizable game I have played with so many options for skills, the talent grid and a huge amount of stats and counterstats. The upside is that this is a theorycrafter’s dream. The downside is that gimping your character is extremely easy, and that combat is quite slow at the beginning of the game while your character is still picking up his gear. Gear is fundamental in this game to the point that if you are high level but extremely undergeared you might not be able to kill anything your own level. Updating and choosing your template well is needed, and stacking a single stat will probably gimp your character. Speically since most stats have a counterstat, for example your Endurance will face the oponent’s Luck, your Agility will face the oponets Expertise, your Conviction will face the oponent’s Willpower. Also I think none of the stats are linear.

A major difference between this and most MMOs is that, besides no autoattack, you also get 3 abilities for free – PERIOD. All other abilities have to be picked up at the talent grid. This makes it possible to have a healer who will not have a single healing spell or a summoner who wont have a single summoning spell. So correctly picking spells is extremely important in order to keep your character viable through the levels.

This is definitelly not a noob-friendly game in this sense, and you will see the effects of stats/loot right out of the beginning instance in noob island (league) or noob sewer (empire). Bear with it and for a while and combat will get better, if you are correctly speced.

Keen you said that open beta is considered launch, does that mean there is no server wipe at the end? The main reason I haven’t been playing is to avoid burning myself out before the closed beta character wipe.

Also, while the combat is simple in some sense, all classes have a built-in mechanic they must use. Scouts will have to fill their quiver with arrows, Summoners need to get blood drops to use their defensive and healing spells, Healers have fanaticism to increase the cast time of their next spells, Wardens have a pet and they need to manage the pet’s energy, Warriors have a rage bar, Psionicists have a very unique mechanic, they need to link their mind with the enemy to access most of their skills, and several of their most power skills will give them mental overload, which debuffs their stats, etc…

I love your coverage of this game Keen, it’s really getting me interested. I’ve not been able to get a beta key yet, but from all I’ve read here and seen elsewhere, this is looking to be a pretty impressive game, especially for a free to play MMO. Keep us up to date.

Well, Fear of Death can be removed by talking to the NPC standing next to the respawn point (Essentially the WoW graveyeard equivalent). Costs 3.5g at level 40.

Perfume also adds a buff to HP and Mana, as well as some resistances to CC abilities. Right now all that we know about the costs in the cash shop are rumored, but it looks like 5 cents for a 30 second use. Doing the math on that, if you wanted to be always under the perfume effects (8 hours a day) it would cost $24/month. Excessive, for sure.

Right now we don’t know what a rank 3 patronage (rank 1, 2, and 3 available) will do. Each patronage rank increases the effects of the perfume (patronage is obtainable in-game). It’s all speculation at this point, but so far it seems to be the only thing in the cash shop that may increase your character’s strength.

Note: Perfume can be obtained outside of the cash shop. 1 per day from a daily quest and 20 initially from your first patronage quest.

The perfume is exactly what i am referring to. As well as the FoD debuff and the runes.
Also limiting the amount of treasures you can get daily to one and limiting the ways for people to get gold forces people to spend cash in the game in a very forced way.

But Keen tell me if 1 perfume per day is a decent amount for a play session of 2/3 hours?

And what level is the daily quest where you can obtain perfume from?

I love this game and i will start playing it for sure but the FoD debuff and the perfume thing piss me off a lot.
IMO (and by the reactions of the playerbase in the Russian, American and European forums) the way things are set now is very abusive.

Hell if they want to charge us money per time played then they could’ve released this game with a subscription option.
But the way they do it, the higher level you get the more money you’ll spend and considering that at level 40 the endgame is composed of PvP and fights against very strong mobs you are prone to die a LOT.

You have to get over the FoD debuff. It’s no worse than armor repairs in WoW and definitely not as bad as exp loss. Put the FoD out of your head for a minute.

The perfume increasing HP is the problem. I think that it needs to be toned down or made more available or something. I definitely agree that the store should sell me things that I want to buy, not that I have to buy.

Sorry, but for me FoD is worse than armor repairs. Imagine that you are strolling around, accidentally turn your PvP flag on and are ganked to oblivion by some jackass??

If i die two or three times in a row i am useless. Hell with the severe importance of stats in this game it’s enough to die once to make you nearly useless in the game if you don’t clean the debuff. Walking permanently “perfumed” is the only option people will have to not being afraid to die.

And don’t tell me that you expect that you will be able to get perfumes cheaply from the AH. They are THE most important item in the game due to the severity of FoD (and this being appliable to PvE and PvP deaths).

Mind you that i really don’t care about death penalties but making one so severe and putting in the item shop an item that clears the debuff while making it extremely difficult to get in-game makes it an obligation to use the cash shop to play the game.

Which is a pity. If they really wanted to force people to cough up money for their they could make it pay to play. They didn’t even had to do it as a monthly fee, they could do it as pay by minute like in the East or something.

Sorry about my rants, it’s just that it had been so long that an MMO really excited me(since WoW’s release) that i am just annoyed by the way they are handling the item shop. Because as it is now it truly is driving of a lot of people away from the game.

I know i can… The problem is the gold cost to remove the FoD debuff. At max level it is too steep since 1myrrh=1sec and FoD debuff lasts around 50 mins that’s a lot of gold.
So if you die a lot you NEED to buy perfumes from cash shop because you can’t simply make enough gold to pay for all the deaths.

Hey Keen, not sure if you remember me, but I played with you a bit in Conjunction in WAR. During that time I found out you had this blog and I’ve been periodically checking it ever since. You’ve put up some pretty exciting previews of Allods. Once it goes “live” I’m going to be really tempted to try to hop on your server and play! As far as I understand it’s going to be free-to-play with microtransations… when exactly is it coming out for keeps?

Pedro, it is not extremely difficult to get the item in game, in fact it is downright easy. It IS time consuming, but that is part of playing a F2P game and not paying, you get “inconvenienced”.

As I explained before, you CAN make alts, your alts CAN do the daily perfume quest, and you can mail their perfumes to your main character. It is not convenient, but it is a form of getting it in game for your time needs.

@Keen: I wasn’t referring to the cost of the removal when I said excessive, I was referring to the length of the debuff. That’s where it differs from WoW, etc. and that’s where it’s clearly designed as a push towards the cash shop.

In WoW, you avoid a death debuff by returning to your body. Accepting the debuff is a decision to go elsewhere and it’s usually gone by the time you’ve finished travelling. That’s a huge difference.

It doesn’t bother me much per se, it’s just an indication that they’re willing to affect gameplay for cash shop incentives. The stat boost from the perfume just adds to it.

Would you have argued that playing a Ferengi in STO is no big deal because it just costs a buck? No, you’d trash that just on principle.

@Rog: You’ve been misinformed. In Allods you can remove the FoD debuff at any time by spending in-game gold at an npc. In WoW you have to wait for it to wear off.

The main issue is the stat boost and cc reduction that perfume also provides, potentially turning it into a necessity for pvp as opposed to a convenience. Have to wait and see where this goes. There’s a lot of people blowing steam over nothing at the moment.

Hey, so I quit wow a couple of months back (was playing since release) – but I really want to get in on THIS game. I’ve been watching videos all day, I’ve been reading forums off and on, and I went and created an account on allods.gpotato.com.

Now the problem I keep running into is in the installation … I download it off their website, (AllodsOnlineDownloader.exe) but when I open it and try to run it, It opens as a Dos file and then instantly closes…Maybe I am missing something, but my friend and I really want to give this game a serious try, and neither of us are able to figure it out…

The Dear players! The Big request! Do Not perceive this project, as representatives to Russia or russian playing industry.
The Russian users too feel resentment by this phenomena…
But the main, take into account that owners of the project – not that people, which developed play itself…
P.S….. Excuse me for my english

[…] As I read through the article, a sentence or two struck a chord – you can read the entire article here: It’s different than something like STO or even Darkfall where you can sail ships. The depth […]